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Pins and Needles	By : libek Category: Digimon > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 5186 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon: Digital Monsters, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Prelude
- 2-Daisuke
- 3-Yamato
- 4-Ken
- 5-Yamato
- 6-Miyako
- 7-Ken
- 8-Yamato
- 9-Takeru
- 10-Ken
- 11-Yamato
- 12-Ken
- 13-Yamato
- 14-Hikari
- 15-Ken
- 12
- 13
- 14
DISCLAIMER: See previous parts.
A/N: More or less solid angst here, with...I think...something of a cliffhanger at the end. I apologize for that. I don't like doing cliffhangers. But it just felt right to stop there. Rest assured, the fic is not over yet, nor will it be over for quite some time. I still have lots planned for this, and however it may look at the end of this chapter, this is NOT the end of the fic.

Pins and Needles

Part Thirteen

by Libek

Someone was calling to him. Yamato knew that, vaguely, but he was half-asleep and ignored them. If it were important, they would try again, and he felt so warm. So warm, and just awake enough to wonder lazily if he were dreaming. When that someone called a second time, he did try to open his eyes, but the warmth made him sluggish and it was too hard. Besides, he didn't really want to open them. Everything was very soft right now, very cozy, but he had the sense that that would change if he started moving around, and he didn't want it to change. Not just yet. So he curled up instead, wrapping himself in the soft warmth, getting blankets in-between his fingers, his toes, and feeling safe. Safer than he had felt in a long time, actually.

"Yamato-chan..."

He recognized the voice this time. No, he definitely didn't want to open his eyes. He had heard that voice before. It had changed the nice warmth into an almost unbearable heat, made breathing difficult and thinking impossible. Yamato tightened his curl and pressed his cheeks into the softness to cool them. He'd had the oddest dreams about that voice. Nightmares, for the most part. He remembered feeling trapped, somehow caged, and then his whole body had seemed to throb, his skin had caught fire, he was going to burst -- and all the while, that voice had murmured in his ear.

Yamato didn't like that voice much. It could be coaxing, even almost sort of sweet sometimes, but the things it said to him...

A hand landed on his shoulder, fingers curling into his flesh through the softness, and he was suddenly, completely awake. Jolting, Yamato ripped away from the hand and found himself on the edge of the bed, tangled in black silk sheets. For maybe half a second, he thought he was still dreaming. Across from him, Ken stood motionlessly, one hand still outstretched to touch his shoulder both eyes briefly startled before they went cold and empty.

"I see you're awake," the Digimon Kaizer commented. He was already straightening to leave. "Good. Then I can get on with my duties. I won't be long, and when I return, we can get you cleaned up. You're such a messy thing." His pale lips curled at the edges, and he lowered his gaze pointedly.

Pointedly, Yamato realized, to rest in his lap. Feeling his face grow hot, the blond boy yanked the sheets up to his chest. Yes, he had noticed a slight dampness on his thighs, but he'd hoped it was only sweat. The fact that Ken had known about it meant -- what? That the Digimon Kaizer had pulled the covers back to watch him while he slept, or...that he'd been making a lot of noise. He didn't particularly like either option. Fuck.

Soft laughter drew his eyes back to the other boy's face, and what he saw there made him wish he hadn't bothered with the sheets. The bastard was enjoying this. "Ah, I see you do know. That's good."

"Yeah? Well, you swallow some of that stuff and see how well you hold out," Yamato snarled at him. It came out sounding desperate and uncertain, like he was grasping at straws, and for a split second he wondered. He shook it off and tried again, this time for cynicism. Being cynical, he had a lot of practice at. "What was it? E? Rufies? Come on, Ken -- I don't know all the party drugs out there. Give me a hint..."

"What makes you think there really was a drug?" the Digimon Kaizer asked, his voice expressionless.

Because the alternative is too horrible to think about. He felt his smile slipping and fought to keep it in check. "Nice try, but I'm not usually that sensitive."

"Perhaps not," Ken said agreeably, but his eyes were dancing. He'd seen the struggle. "Very well. The answer is, none of the above. I've taken to calling it Yellow Star as a sort of private joke, but of course that would never have been its commercial name. Drug companies seem to prefer to name things after gods or historical moments or random selections of the alphabet. I wonder if it would have made it through the paperwork..."

"You invented it?" He couldn't help but stare. He'd known the younger boy had a knack for chemistry -- pretty much everything, actually -- but this...

The Digimon Kaizer smiled, seeming to enjoy his shock. "Yes, I invented it. You didn't know? Don't look so surprised, Yamato-chan. I've done a lot of things you don't know about."

Between his condescending tone and the implication -- that he had been hurting digimon, and no one had noticed, no one had noticed anything until it was far too late... Yamato closed his eyes tightly. "You fucking asshole," he whispered, and didn't immediately realize how dangerous that had been.

"Oh, yes?" The younger boy arched a thin, dark eyebrow. Every last centimeter of his being was suddenly rigid and veritably dripping superiority. "Not a very polite way to refer to your master."

Even then, he wanted to say fuck you. He wanted to tell Ken to go to hell, or speculate wildly on various other disgusting animals he would have much preferred sex with. He wanted to hit him, the way he'd done the first time the Digimon Kaizer had tried to kiss him. (God, had it really been just last night?) And Yamato would have done all of these things, maybe even added a few more, except that when he opened his mouth, when he lifted his hand, all he could see was Taichi strung up by the wrists and bleeding. So he swallowed the words and he lowered his fist and he stared hard at the smooth stone floor until he could think of something that wouldn't get them both killed.

"Wherever you're going," he ended up saying carefully, "I'm sure you're late by now."

Behind him, a sense of movement -- the bed creaked, the blankets rippled -- and then he felt the Digimon Kaizer's hands on his shoulders. They landed hesitantly, as though the younger boy had intended to do something else with them first, then squeezed very briefly and withdrew. Yamato couldn't help glancing up after him, and forced his eyes down the instant he could move them, but not before he had seen the dark expression on Ken's face. It had looked almost...sad.

Incredulously, Yamato looked up again quickly, but not quite quickly enough. The sadness -- if it had ever been there -- was gone. Now, he merely looked angry. Then the anger also faded.

"You're right," the indigo-haired boy murmured expressionlessly. "I am expected elsewhere today." Still, he hesitated a moment longer, and Yamato thought he seemed reluctant -- and he was almost sort of curious...but this, too, passed and Ken stood. As he watched, the Digimon Kaizer turned to leave.

"How do you know I won't try to escape?" Yamato heard himself demanding sharply, and wasn't sure why he had said it -- only that he didn't want the younger boy to leave this way, not without knowing where he was headed.

Slowly, Ken looked over his shoulder, and slower still, he smiled. "Because there's nowhere else to go. What will you do, Yamato-san? The cell doors are all locked, and you have no key. Worse, you have no digivice, and no way of letting your little friends know where you are. Do you intend to leave Taichi-san here alone, and lose yourself again in the frozen wasteland surrounding this place? I would most likely never find you -- not in the blizzard going on outside, not without your digivice to track -- but after an hour or so, it would make no difference. After all," he added bemusedly, "what am I to do with a corpse?"

Again. He winced involuntarily, and caught himself drawing the blankets to his chin, against the half-remembered cold. Yamato dropped them hastily, but said nothing, and the other boy seemed to take this as agreement.

"I thought not," Ken murmured. "I'll be back shortly, Yamato-san. Keep the bed warm for me?"

Shut the eyes, blot it out. He held his breath until he heard the door closing, not wanting the Digimon Kaizer see his reaction, then tore the covers from his body and threw them as hard as he could so that they made a rumpled mess at the end of the mattress and onto the floor. No, the blond boy thought, panting. He would not be keeping the bed warm. He would get up and go into the bathroom and use it and maybe take a shower. By himself, for once. That was one good thing about this day so far.

The only good thing.

Shit, his eyes were burning. Well, let them, Yamato thought savagely, flicking on the light switch in the bathroom. He would not cry. What was there to cry about, anyway? He wasn't some idiot schoolgirl, he hadn't been a virgin, and it hadn't even really hurt much. Or at all, actually.

In the mirror, his cheeks were pink. He splashed them with cold water and turned away. This room was nothing so elaborate as the massive bathing room on the floor above it. There was only a toilet and a shower cubicle, side by side in Western fashion. He used the former, just briefly, and slid back the door to the latter. The cold water didn't seem to have helped the heat in his face.

What was the matter with him? No pain. He wasn't even sure he could really call it rape. He liked guys, he liked sex, and even if he hadn't been exactly in the mood for it, even if the Digimon Kaizer wouldn't have been his first (or even last) choice...it was still sex with another guy, right? In fact, if it had been just Ken, and not the Digimon Kaizer at all, he might have even called it --

The water was an icy shock on his naked skin, and Yamato dropped the shower head, making a blind grab for the knobs with water in his eyes. He hadn't been paying attention, had he?

Drops fell one after another, landed on his skin and the black enamel, sat there like globs of clear gelatin only to burst as new ones came crashing down to take their place, and it all seemed to be happening very slowly. Yamato found that he could almost track individual drops as they tumbled from showerhead to shower floor. It was easier than listening to the thoughts racing in his own head.

He felt dirty, in a way that he knew the shower wouldn't help. Shouldn't have, but did. Yamato leaned forward to rest his forehead against the steamy tile. He had gotten it all set up somehow without really noticing, and thought vaguely that he might have overcompensated -- there was too much steam, and his skin where the water beat down upon it was turning bright red -- but he didn't really care. It didn't hurt.

No, it hadn't hurt at all. Not in that way.

So how come he wanted to die?

They slammed into his mind like a blow to the head -- sudden vivid images, playing in a tight loop like a movie in a theater except that he couldn't look away. He'd felt so hot, so hot all over, and very hard. He'd wanted to come, needed the release because it had started to ache, and more than anything else he'd wanted...Yamato felt a hot flush creeping up his neck and into his face. He had always liked it both ways, and even though being with a guy who actually knew where the prostrate was felt a little bit better than searching for it himself, he had never before in his life just wanted to be fucked like that. Maybe, he thought hopefully, it was just that even in his drugged state he had known the Digimon Kaizer would never let him be on top.

Maybe. But he grabbed a bar of soap and scrubbed his skin raw because he didn't really think so.

This was stupid. He had gotten over this years ago, and anyway, he'd been an insecure moron back then, too panicked over being gay in the first place to feel comfortable letting some other guy climb on top of him, and he had said a lot of stupid things. Things like how he'd always preferred to give rather than receive. But he was over all of that, really. Why was it coming up again now? Why, the instant Ken thrust into him, had all of the old fear and self-loathing come rushing back to the surface?

Maybe because he had never worked out how completely vulnerable it would make him feel to have his legs forced apart? Not that anyone watching would have believed him if he'd said he hadn't wanted it. That he hadn't been one hundred percent willing the entire time.

Even Taichi would have had a hard time believing it.

Distantly, Yamato felt a faint, bitter smirk spreading over his face. Taichi had wanted him to kill Ken, hadn't he? He thought he had wanted to kill Ken, too, but all of his memories of the previous night were a little hazy before the sex. Going back through them was a little like reading someone else's diary. It gave you a vague idea, but it wasn't the same as actually being there and experiencing it yourself. Well, whoever had wanted it done, he was pretty sure his best friend would have been impressed with how spectacularly he had managed to fail.

In the back of his mind, he could almost hear Taichi's voice saying, "Dude. I asked you to kill him. That does not translate to 'fuck his brains out'."

Again, the images assaulted him. A burst of scalding water forced them away.

What would the others think? His close friends, his baby brother? Would they think he'd invited it? No. Intellectually, Yamato knew they would never do that. They would just assume Ken had tied him down and made him bleed -- and in a way, that was worse. He had never dealt well with pity. Anger and hatred, yes. He was used to that, had once gone out of his way to attract it, but he couldn't stand having other people feel sorry for him. The pats on the back, the condescending sympathetic looks, and underneath it all, that grim conviction: I would never let that happen to me.

"What else was I supposed to do?" Yamato whispered brokenly to himself. "He would've hurt Taichi..."

At first, when the new drops of moisture landed on his clenched fist, he thought they were just more water from the shower. Then his vision blurred and he sucked in a breath that sounded wet. Damn it, he didn't want to cry! Especially not in this wretched, hiccupping way. As if he didn't have enough to be ashamed of. Yamato shook himself fiercely and wiped his eyes with wet hands, but the tears wouldn't stop. Even when he yanked back the shower curtain and scrubbed his whole face with a towel, they wouldn't stop, and through his blurry eyes the crimson towel looked like blood.

He lowered the towel slowly, heard it flutter to the floor, and leaned back against the shower wall. Maybe, he found himself thinking, only slightly hysterical, he really should kill the Digimon Kaizer. If he were dead when the others came, Yamato didn't think anyone would mind all that much. What he'd done to Taichi -- what he'd done to him -- that was worth killing someone for, wasn't it? He didn't think they would take him to jail for it. And if he didn't, then when the Digimon Kaizer came back...he'd said he was going to... Yamato sucked in a harsh breath. He didn't want to go through that again. Even once, and his friends -- they wouldn't blame him, but they were all going to wonder why he hadn't fought back harder. Twice...the blond boy wasn't sure he'd be able to face them if it happened twice.

Of course, if he killed the Digimon Kaizer today, when he returned...

...then there was really no reason to tell anyone what had happened at all, was there?

Yamato reached over and turned off the shower. The last drop seemed to echo, and it took him a moment to realize that he had stopped crying. He remembered what Taichi had said to him. Wasn't that enough reason, all by itself?

"At first, I couldn't figure out what he wanted from me. He never asked any questions, you know? Probably a good thing. If I'd thought it would stop him...I would've told him everything I knew."

He'd looked embarrassed, and Yamato had asked him why he had told him about it. The expression on the brunet's face when he'd explained that he knew he could tell his best friend anything...

Maybe he would be honest with Taichi. Not right now, of course -- he still didn't want the other boy getting himself killed -- but later. After all of this was over.

After Ken was dead.

"The second day, he showed me around a little. Started talking about needing someone to help him look after things. I figured out what he was trying to do and laughed at him. He got back at me for that on the third day, I guess. Stripped me naked, slapped me around a little."

He had smiled. There was blood in his mouth, he was talking about being beaten, and he had smiled. Somehow, that was so much worse to watch than it would have been to see him sobbing hysterically.

"The fourth day was almost kinda funny. You know, he tried to come on to me? Fucking asshole. Thinks he's such hot stuff. Like I'd ever be interested in him."

Then again, maybe some secrets were better kept. Yamato stepped out of the shower and wrapped one of the crimson towels around his waist. He didn't think Taichi would really want to know anyway. Even if it might have been nice to be honest with somebody, upsetting his best friend -- seeing the horror or the pity or the scorn -- that would have been worse. Like Taichi didn't have plenty to deal with already.

"Then...I don't know. I don't remember much of that night. I think he stormed off, but I had a fever or somethin' from the cold. When I woke up, he decided to let me have some clothes, and said he didn't want me dyin' too fast. Real humanitarian, our Ken-chan."

The blond boy paused. He wondered -- since he'd been here, he had seen it again and again, just in flashes but still there. The Digimon Kaizer would falter, for a few seconds, and then...he was different. The way he had been in the bathroom, and last night sometimes, and this morning. When he had been, just for a little while, almost...tender. Maybe even kind.

What Taichi had described sounded a bit like that.

He blinked and leaned on the bathroom door so that it shut heavily. Idiot. Fool. He had been over this before, and he knew better than to start thinking that way. What was it Taichi had said to him -- that it didn't matter anymore? Even if the indigo-haired boy was having a relapse, even if the Dark Seed was possessing him again and the real Ken was still in there somewhere, he had proved himself too dangerous to risk rehabilitating a second time. Like a mass murderer escaped from the asylum and killing again, you couldn't really argue that he just needed more help. You had to take him out of commission once and for all. The fact that this mass murderer had once been a good friend changed none of that.

But if Ken really could still be reached -- if it wasn't just his desperate mind making up idyllic fantasies -- then shouldn't he at least be trying?

"And then on the fifth day..."

Yamato shuddered. No. It wasn't worth the risk. Not for a guess. Not when he couldn't be sure. Not after everything Taichi had gone through. He was glad he'd asked for details, though. Even now, even when he knew every single horrific thing Ken had done, there was still a part of him that thought...

Never mind, the blond boy told himself. It was a nonissue. He had already made his decision. He just hoped that the others would understand, later, why it had needed doing. Especially Daisuke. He had thought there was something more than friendship between them, although nothing had ever seemed to result from it.

Weird. They had been so close, and right up until Daisuke had started going out with Miyako, he had sort of figured the younger boy for gay. Not that dating a girl proved anything, of course, besides a little bit of confusion and self-loathing, but...

He wondered if Daisuke was going to hate him.

Probably.

But he's not here, Yamato argued with himself. If he were here -- if he'd seen Taichi...

His resolve hardened, just a little. Yes, Daisuke would almost certainly hate him. Some of the others might, too. But he didn't care -- couldn't let himself care. It probably wasn't the right thing to do, but it was the necessary thing.

So now the only question remaining was: How?

For a moment, he wasn't sure. There was always the letter-opener, but when he went to pick it up, he noticed how dull the blade was. Killing the Digimon Kaizer that way would take a long time, and he would end up having to pin him to the floor and stab him through the neck all at once. Brute strength had never been one of his greatest attributes -- out of all the brawls he'd had with Taichi, he could count on the fingers of one hand how many times he'd won. Plenty of draws, but few outright wins, and he didn't think a draw would be good enough here. On the other hand, though, he had sent a lot of kids bigger and tougher than him crying to the principal, so it wasn't like he couldn't hold his own. But to overpower Ken physically -- no, he needed a weapon of some kind, and a plan. Ken was still shorter than him, but they weren't built the same at all. The Digimon Kaizer was all finely-chorded muscle.

Note to self, Yamato thought bitterly as he made his way over to the closet. Start working out more. Natural slenderness was no excuse for being lazy, and for the first time he was painfully aware of how different being skinny and being in good shape really were. Now if he were going to come out on top in a fistfight, what he really needed was a katana.

When Yamato opened the closet door, he was lost in thought and had for the moment forgotten that it would always contain whatever he wanted. Which was really the perfect frame of mind to go looking, because you weren't filled with nagging doubts about whether or not it would work. The only thought in the blond boy's head as he opened that door was how desperately he needed something to fight with. And the closet provided.

For half a second, Yamato thought he was seeing things, and he almost closed the door to try again for more suitable clothes. Then his brain caught up with what his eyes were showing it, and he hastily let go of the door. He had never used it before, and wasn't at all sure that he would be able to get this particular result again, so he didn't want to risk it. Man, oh man. And to think, all he had wanted was a katana.

There were katana. Many of them, all different lengths and designs. Then there were axes, and stuff he vaguely recognized from his Medieval European History class -- he thought they were called mauls, or something like that. Enormous metal spiked balls atop sturdy wooden poles, whatever the name. Along the back, there was also a row of things he didn't recognize at all. On the floor, a neat rack of different kinds of guns, most of which Yamato had never even seen good models, just in TV shows. He reached out, very cautiously, and ran the fingers of one hand over a handgun.

Guns were the most efficient way of killing someone, right? And he had read somewhere that you could shoot someone from a distance and have little to no psychological repercussions. Of course, those rules probably didn't apply when you were shooting one of your closest friends...

At random, Yamato wondered who was going to help him finish Final Fantasy XIII now. Taichi had never had much patience for RPGs. If it hadn't been for Ken, Yamato didn't think he would have bought the game at all. Its odd tag-team fighting style didn't work very well with only one player. Six months ago, they had been about halfway through, and Yamato didn't like the idea of leaving it unfinished. He remembered suddenly how hard it had been to get Ken to play at all, and the pleased shock he had felt when, after playing for two hours straight, the younger boy had actually asked -- distracted with the creature they were battling, almost careless with the words -- if he could stay the night.

His grip on the handgun had gotten so tight that the metal was chaffing his skin, and Yamato let go of it abruptly, confused, not at all sure where the angry red marks on his palms had come from. What was he doing? He didn't want to kill Ken. If the Digimon Kaizer hadn't hurt Taichi...

Was he strange, that he still minded that more than the fact that he'd been raped?

Not that strange, perhaps. Anyone might have felt the same way, if their rape had made them come so hard that they couldn't even --

No. No. No. He wasn't going to think about that. As soon as Ken was dead, there would be no one else who knew, and then he would be able to forget, and it would be just like it had never happened. So there was no point in wasting precious time with it now.

The lingering heat in his face belied these calm thoughts, but Yamato closed his eyes and focused and eventually that, too, faded. Good thing, because Ken had promised to be back soon -- which could be any minute now -- and he didn't have anything even vaguely resembling a plan yet. Maybe later, he could...but no. He was going to forget all of this, wasn't he? The blond boy took a deep breath and stepped away from the closet, but didn't let go of his gun. Psychological repercussions or not, shooting someone in the head was definitely the fastest way to kill them, and whatever else he did, he knew he would have to take the Digimon Kaizer out before he could sound an alarm.

With the gun in hand, Yamato closed the closet door again and this time had to try more than once to get a decent selection of clothing. He resented all of the silk and satin -- it made him feel like some sort of ornate doll -- but at the moment, he was more worried that Ken would immediately know there was something wrong if he opened the door wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Probably not the best way to start an assassination.

Then he wondered -- why answer the door at all? He could start the shower again and hide behind the door. Get the drop on him, so to speak.

So, he got into position and waited.

And waited.

More than once, Yamato thought about changing into something more comfortable, seeing as Ken would most likely not live long enough to get a good look at him, but in the end, he always decided against it. No matter how many agonizingly long minutes passed, he knew that the Digimon Kaizer might still arrive any second now, and he would end up dead if he had his back turned to the doorway when the time came.

Come on, Ken. You really wanted to fuck me some more, didn't you? Get the hell up here.

The doorknob remained stubbornly immobile. There were no signs that it might have been about to get shot off or even so much as budge, though the gun felt hot in his hand and his fingers were getting slippery.

Come on! COME ON!

Then he heard them: footsteps in the hall outside. Soft at first, but growing louder, and he didn't dare shift the gun in his grip to wipe his hands on his pants. The footsteps paused, and after a long moment the doorknob turned. Yamato held his breath. Was it his imagination, or was the Digimon Kaizer hesitating on the other side of that door...?

He had plenty of time to feel ridiculous, crouched in the corner like some action movie hero, and very suddenly, Yamato knew this wasn't going to work. It came as a flash of sudden insight. He had never been the hero. That was Taichi, through and through. And even though the door took forever to open and it seemed like he could have easily moved aside, Yamato could not get out of the way fast enough. The solid wooden door, with its beautiful intricate carvings, slammed into his chest and all he managed was to turn his head aside so that the blow didn't knock him unconscious. Then the door withdrew and he was sinking to his knees and he could barely breathe. Through the pain, Yamato kept his grip on the handgun and pointed it at the Digimon Kaizer's stony face.

Silence. They stared at one another.

"Would you really kill me?"

Yamato swallowed. He thought of the way Taichi had smiled at him, one eye swollen shut, and he found the safety with sweaty fingers, flicking it back. Wasn't that answer enough?

"Ah," the Digimon Kaizer said, seeming to agree. "So you would." There was no expression on his face or in his tone or even buried deep within his eyes. It was a little unnerving, then, when he smiled. "I thought I was your friend, Yamato-san."

And all at once, he was Ken again. Yamato could feel his hands shaking and tried to still them. He wanted to close his eyes and shut it out, but he knew that if he did that, the younger boy would seize his weapon and everything would be wasted. In a voice that sounded much braver than he actually felt, he asked, "How did you know where I was?"

Indifferently, Ken shrugged his shoulders. "A few of the old surveillance cameras still work. This is one of them."

"Then..." Yamato struggled to understand. "Why did you come in here unarmed?"

That same sinking feeling was coming over him again. This would never work, he wasn't Taichi, he should have tried something else --

But there was nothing else, was there?

The smile on Ken's face fell away, and for maybe half a second Yamato saw something under it that looked like...what? Fear? Betrayal? And he realized abruptly that Ken had come because the indigo-haired boy hadn't really believed he would do it -- but then the emotion was gone, as if it had never been there, and the Digimon Kaizer snorted quietly. "I knew I would require no assistance to deal with the likes of you."

Yamato slid his finger around the trigger and fired. The gun jerked violently in his hands, and he went instantly deaf. A piece of the door near Ken's head went flying, and he saw Ken's eyes widen, had the satisfaction of knowing that even that much had surprised him, but he had missed. Deep down, he wasn't all that surprised.

Just the recoil, he reassured himself. After all, he had never fired a real gun before. He would just have to try again.

Quickly, because the Digimon Kaizer had recovered and was now moving towards him. Yamato took another shot at him, and got much closer to his head, but this time the other boy did not look startled -- only angry. Fuck, his ears were ringing from the blast. Sounds came as if through thick cotton. He hadn't really noticed how bad it had gotten, though, until the Digimon Kaizer moved his mouth but nothing came out.

Studying his lips, Yamato thought he had said: Four bullets left, Yamato-san. Will that be enough?

He fired again, and this time his anger drove the bullet far off course. It grazed the Digimon Kaizer's hip and did not stop him from taking another step closer. He still wasn't sounding the alarm, why wasn't he sounding the alarm? Another bullet brushed his ear, and he hesitated but resolutely kept walking. Yamato cursed himself. His hands were shaking so badly now, and he couldn't seem to steady them. The younger boy would reach him soon, just a few more steps, and then everything -- everything would be lost...

A bitter voice in the back of his head whispered, Taichi should've known better than to put his trust in you, and Yamato agreed with it, agreed completely...he should have chosen a different weapon, something that didn't require such precise aim --

The Digimon Kaizer had reached him. Somewhere along the line, he had fired another shot into the wall. One more left. He looked up into tanzanite eyes, and found them laughing. Laughing at him. Mockingly, the Digimon Kaizer took that last step forward, and stretched out his hand for the gun.

"I knew you couldn't do it," he said in a whisper, and the barely-breathed words ran up and down Yamato's spine with tiny sensuous fingers. That voice again, the one that stroked and petted him and made him feel nauseous.

He didn't even have to think. He just shoved the barrel of the gun up against the Digimon Kaizer's warm belly, and pulled the trigger.

The eyes widened. The body stumbled back, and it was Ken again as he felt his midsection, as he pulled his hands back and stared at them incredulously. There was a strange, slow moment where Yamato saw him fall and wanted to catch him, but Ken caught himself against a wall and slid down it slowly. Again in his eyes, that look of betrayal. He wasn't dead yet, nowhere near it, so the bullet must have missed his vitals, but with all of that blood it was only a matter of time, and Yamato realized that he had some of it on his face, that it must have splattered from the impact, and that it was hot and sticky on his cheek. Then he was moving, crouching down beside Ken, and not even sure what he thought he could do. He wasn't a doctor, or even sure he should be trying to help at all --

At that moment, breaking him out of his panicked thoughts, Ken reached up and grabbed the front of his shirt. The indigo-haired boy looked desperate, urgent, and for a moment Yamato struggled to break his grip, but then he said, in a muddy hoarse voice, "Finish it. Please...kill me."

And all Yamato could do was stare at him. He swallowed thickly. "You're already dying..."

"No," Ken hissed, and his grip tightened, pulling Yamato down so that their noses bumped. "No, it won't be soon enough, there are guards coming and Wormmon -- Wormmon will want to save me..."

Guards? Yamato wondered, because he had never seen Ken do anything vaguely like sound an alarm, but then he shook himself angrily. Now was really not the time to worry about the details. "But Ken...I don't think there's anything they can really do for you now, you've lost so much blood --"

He was lying. Why was he lying? They both knew better anyway! He should have been looking for another weapon, even a blunt object. He remembered Wormmon's teary eyes, and knew Ken was right, but...

"Ken," he whispered instead, brushing the dark hair back from the younger boy's forehead, "what's wrong with you? Why do you want me to kill you? Aren't..." He hated the weakness in his own voice, the naivet�, the stupidity of this question -- but he couldn't stop himself from asking. "Aren't you okay now?"

The younger boy raised his almond-shaped tanzanite eyes, and smiled faintly. After a moment, he lifted a hand weakly and Yamato was startled when he felt it cup his face. "You're very warm," Ken murmured, eyes slipping shut. "Daisuke was never this warm."

Yamato stared at him. Again he thought he should have gotten to his feet, shoved Ken away from him, and gone to the closet once more -- or else he should have gone into the bathroom and found something to stem the flow of blood. One or the other. And Taichi, Taichi would have wanted him to... He wasn't sure anymore. Something.

He was still sitting there when the guards came, but he had pulled Ken's head into his lap. Ken had such soft hair.

To be continued...
- 12
- 13
- 14
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Pins and Needles